Previously on 24, President Estro is crazy insane. Chloe double-tasered an annoying guy in a bar, where she is helping Jack remotely. Bill was taken into custody so it doesn’t look like F is helping Bill and Chloe. F’s henchman, Miles the Weasel, called Mike Novick to tell him that he doesn’t think F is doing a good job. Estro’s totally awesome crazy insane wife who’s not actually crazy insane downed a bunch of pills with a bunch of wine and called Estro, who basically hung up on his wife, because he’s a pinkytoehead. That’s not to call him a little blonde, that’s… well nevermind. Jack got Robocop’s recording and is trying to land the plane. Halliburton told Estro to shoot down the plane that Jack Bauer is on. And they captured Bierko, who’s been absent several episodes.

The copilot is complaining about his broken nose. Jack calls F and tells her they’ll land in 21 minutes, just in time for the 2nd commercial break. Jack, of course, asks about Audrey. They decide they’ll get a team to head off law enforcement when the plane lands.
Rico Suave comes in and tells Audrey he just saved 15% on his car insurance by switching to GEICO. Oh yeah, the other good news is that Daddy the PitBull survived the car crash. The hospital called, Daddy’s in ICU but expected to pull through. Rico says he’s well-protected, but you know how that goes. Rico’s looking suspicious? Maybe he’s just anemic, I don’t know.
F tasks Rico Suave to get Jack and bring him back to CTU before Estro’s men get to him. Copy that.
Halliburton Howard tells Estro that they’ll make it look like there’s a hijacking in progress on the plane so they can shoot it down. “All you need to do is appear to struggle with the ethics of shooting down the plane and then make the decision.” Estro appears to struggle with the ethics of being evil and tells Halliburton Howard to proceed.
F and Bill are going over logistics, and Weasel hears them talking about great evidence that implicates Estro, and Miles asks F what’s going on. She tells him it’s need to know, and he can need to know it later.
Mike Novick tells Estro that the plane has sent out a hijacking distress call to the FAA, and the FAA has picked it up. Supposedly the plane’s gonna be used to target installations on the ground. Boy, I can call them. I called it out loud, I just didn’t type it. Estro asks an air force admiral what they do, and he says we have to shoot it down with our scrambled F-18. Estro appears to struggle with the ethics of shooting down the plane, and Mike says no, I just don’t think Jack Bauer would do that. The admiral is like, Jack Bauer is stressed out. Mike’s like, I don’t know why this is happening, but Jack wouldn’t do that. The admiral’s like, we’re out of time because the plane’s over the desert now but will be over L.A. county soon, and I’m like, it’s just Hollywood, who cares? (My sister-in-law and Frank’s other relatives excluded.) And the president says do it! And Mike’s like, No! And Estro’s like, I have spoken! COPY THAT!
F gets word about the distress signal and tells Jack that an F-18 has been scrambled. He’s like, “Shoot us down?” and the copilot is going, “I just took the recording in exchange for a free breakfast at IHOP next week, it so wasn’t worth it!”
Jack wants to talk to the F-18 pilot so he can work his Bauer Power Magical Speak, and Bill tells him they’re on a coded frequency. whistle Chloe? Jack tells the copilot they have to land right now this second or they’ll die. The copilot says there’s no where to land for a hundred miles, and Jack tells Bill to find him a stretch of freeway a mile long (give or take 280 feet) they can land on. SarahK says, “Yeah, they’ve got martial law, they can do that.” The copilot says, “We can’t land on the freeway.” Jack says, “It’s late, there’s a curfew, we can do that.” Frank says, “That’s what you just said!” and I say copy that, I’m smirt. Copilot moves over and at Jack’s orders handcuffs himself to the wheel. You know, just in case he was planning on using that commercial jetliner ejection seat. Don’t forget to use the seat cushion as a floatation device if needed. Copy that.
Weasel sees Chloe coming in (F and Bill brought her in). F and Bill ask Chloe to do some technical stuff so they know exactly how long Jack has. Bill finds a freeway, but Copilot whines that it’s not long enough. Jack says either the copilot can try, or Jack will try to land it. Copilot caves, because he doesn’t know if Jack has flight credentials and doesn’t want to risk the safety of the passengers. Because he cares.
Chloe pulls up the radar for the F-18 that she’s hacked into, and they’ve got about 5 minutes. 15 miles. Eep. They bring the plane down hard, the oxygen masks drop, and the flight attendant carries a whole bunch of ones for the passengers. “Put the oxygen masks on!” Copy that! Also heard ya in the pre-flight lecture! They have trouble pulling out of their major nose dive, and Jack helps out. The admiral tells Estro that the plane is landing, and Estro starts throwing a tantrum and saying, shoot it down! And the admiral says, “But… um… he’s uh… landing? Which means not using the plane as a missile.” “Shoot it down!” And Mike’s like, “Wha? They’re not a threat, doofy! What is your deal? I IMPLORE you to reconsider!” Finally Estro caves but yells loudly about sending Marines in the area to take Jack Bauer down. COPY THAT!
Then the plane landing commences, and SarahK just about has a heart attack. Seriously, where is my sphygmomanometer? And who named that thing anyway? Some guy with a deadly blood pressure disease named Sphygmoman? Hey, that’s a cool super-hero name. Blood pressure threatening you? Systolic trying to kill you?? Send out the Cuff Signal and call Sphygmo Man!
What was I saying? Oh yes. Just in time for the 2nd commercial break (really, I rule on this predicting thing), Jack and copilot land the plane. Copilot says, “It’s too fast!” Jack says, “Do it!” The passengers get super-jostled, I hope they’re ok. The plane comes within a TV-tray’s distance of hitting an overpass but stops just in time.
Bill tells Jack that Curtis is coming to meet him. Jack says, “Oh yeah, the copilot’s attached to the plane, so don’t forget to collect him.” Copy that. The passengers all flee, Jack yells at them to continue fleeing, and he opens one of the emergency exits to escape out the side, next to those engines that have already stopped moving (and did they even reverse?). Beep boop, commercial. BTW, that was a huge budget scene. At least it looked like it.
Halliburton tells Estro he screwed up and should have shot down the plane. Copy that. Estro says But the Marines will fix it all! Which yes, they would, but Rico Suave was special forces or something.
Jack calls Rico to tell him that the Marines are swarming, and Curtis is driving in. Jack goes to meet him with his JackSack. Rico says a Jack Bauer phrase when they get stopped by the Marines. Jack tells Rico to talk his way out of it. Rico says, I’m not gonna show you my ID, I have to get Jack Bauer before he escapes. We’re all on the same team, yo. “Now if you really want to fire on a Federal agent, that’s on your head. My head is driving on away from you.” I heart Rico Suave. Anyway, so the dumb Marine (I’m not saying Marines are dumb, I’m saying this one is dumb and should have checked IDs) lets them go, and Rico talks to Bill. Bill says that Estro has to be behind this, and Rico says, “There’s construction on the freeway. I’ll take the surface streets,” which is the ALIAS way of saying, “I’ll take the backroads.” Copy that.
Miles calls F’s cell to ask what’s going on, and Miles says, “But you’re working with two people under arrest. You tell me now.” F is going to tell him. Personally, I think they should hold him in the situation room at gunpoint and not let him out until Estro is dead or at Camp Despair.
The blonde chick who doesn’t have a name that I can remember watches Miles leave to go talk to F, whom I’m now back to calling MR. F, since she didn’t take Miles into the situation room and hold him at gunpoint. Mr. F tells him what’s up, Miles says you’re crazy, she says this is why I didn’t tell you, and here comes blonde chick, who is obviously a mole. I think Miles is gonna kill Mr. F. The blonde chick gives Mr. F a message about Bierko being ready for transfer, and Miles promises not to tell anyone what Mr. F told him. Right. No one but Mike Novick or President Estrogen.
Mr. F tells Bierko he’s being transferred to district holding and tells the men to let her know the second he arrives. Yeah, so that means he won’t actually arrive.
Bierko nods at the driver of his van. So cliche.
Estro is looking for Novick, and Novick walks in to tell Estro that the Marine field commander doesn’t have Bauer after sweeping the perimeter. Bauer got away. Copy that. Estro gets crazy eyes. Novick tries to reassure the President, who gets menacing eyes and turns away. He tells Mike he needs some time alone. “BTW, can you bring me my wife’s pills and some wine to down them with? I’d love to kill myself precisely at this moment.”
Estro’s cell is ringing, and he’s not picking up. If only he knew that it was Miles.
Jack comes in to CTU and gives the recording to Chloe. Don’t let it out of your sight, Chloe, he says. Copy that, Jack. He never mentions how she should make copies. With his 10 minutes until questioning, he wants to see Audrey. Ugh, and see her he does. He even kisses her knee and tells her to close her eyes. Will a sphygmomanometer measure the hurl pressure in my tummy tum?
Estrogen sits at his presidential compound desk and takes out a presidential box that I assume holds his presidential pistol. He calls Halliburton, and they tell him that the Attorney General has info from CTU that implicates Estro. They tell him it would be a horrible thing to put the president on trial. He says, yes, I agree. Gotta go, need to do some stuff before I off myself. Copy that. He checks the magazine in his beautiful 1911. Wow, what a pretty gun he’s gonna kill himself with.
After commercial, Estro goes into Marty’s room for a last magnificent scene together (and bravo, both of you!), where she’s watching CNB and not FoxNews. Is he gonna shoot her? What, she can’t live without him? He’s so arrogant. Anyway, he says he’s so sorry for everything. She says you should be sorry when you forget my birthday. This is too big for sorry. Or something like that. She says if I weren’t so horrified that I married a homosexual, I might actually be impressed with your ability to lie. That was a great scene.
He leaves the room and goes back to his presidential office where his beautiful shiny presidential 1911 awaits. But wait, first he needs to have a glass of Scotch to delay things so he can receive a phone call. Doesn’t he know he could destroy his liver drinking like that? Just as he’s about to shoot himself, he gets an urgent call from CTU. Miles, that !@#$%^&*(). Miles tells him that he feels compelled to intervene and get that recording for the president.
Because you know, not one of those people there would have thought to make a FREAKING COPY! YOU’RE ALL TOO BUSY SAYING “COPY THAT” TO ACTUALLY…. COPY THAT!!!
The President says, I won’t forget this. Miles says, Good! And offscreen, Estro says, I won’t forget to off you just to make sure you’re not a loose end for me. The president puts away his beautiful shiny gun. !@#$it.
Miles walks in to ask Chloe how long before the teleconference, and he’s demagnetizing the recording as Chloe is working on it but not COPYING IT! She tells him to get out of there. Hey, I just noticed Chloe got to change clothes. I’m so glad the sweater is gone. Beep boop.
Next week. Everyone’s like, what happened to the recording that not one single person in TV land ever thought to copy? And Chloe’s like, I don’t know! I hope Jack shoots Miles just for funsies.
Bierko escapes, and one of the guys says they said they’re not finished. Aaron returns, Estro makes him bleed, and says let’s put this behind us. Aaron tells him he’s a disgrace to his office. Estro gets crazy eyes. Robocop tells Jack that he can’t touch Halliburton’s group, but they can touch him. “IF you know what I mean…”